Talk Keynote · 45–60 min

The Media Cycle No One Believes Is a Cycle

Every wave looks like a revolution from the inside — until you've lived through three of them.

From early streaming to social commerce to AI-driven content — every wave looks like a revolution from the inside. This talk is a long-arc view of how media actually evolves, drawn from two decades of building through three of those waves.

Why this talk, now

Every wave of media disruption produces the same 'this time it's different' conviction — right up until the next wave arrives and says the same thing about it. The organizations that keep getting blindsided aren't missing information. They're missing the shape of the last cycle.

This isn't nostalgia for the streaming wars or a prediction about what's next. It's an argument about pattern recognition: the people who keep getting caught flat-footed by media cycles aren't behind on trends — they're pattern-blind to the one that already happened to them.

Best for Media & technology executives · strategy teams · industry conferences Audience leaves with

A long-arc model for how media waves actually repeat
How to tell where the current cycle really sits
What twenty years inside three waves says about the next one

How the talk unfolds

1

Wave one: the streaming era

Early product and growth work at Hulu (2007–2012) — the platform-versus-content fight nobody thought would resolve, and how it did.
2

Wave two: distribution moves again

Founder and operator years across PBS, an agency, and Vizio (2012–2016) — watching the fight move to the living room.
3

Wave three: the creator becomes the platform

Co-founding Packagd, acquired by Meta (2016–2023) — the moment content and distribution collapsed into the same person.
4

The pattern underneath the panic

Why new mediums don't create the danger everyone assumes — they redistribute power, and whoever held the old power calls that a crisis.
5

Where the current wave really sits

A framework for locating any organization on the curve, instead of just reacting to the loudest headline.

Where this comes from

Hulu — Early Product & Growth (2007–2012)

Inside the first platform-versus-content fight of the streaming era.
Packagd → Meta (2016–2023)

Built and sold a company at the exact moment distribution moved to creators directly.
Read more →

Built to adapt

Media & technology executives — a long-arc model for locating the current moment before the next one arrives
Strategy / corporate development teams — applied to platform-bet and M&A timing
Industry conference / association — the pattern told through twenty years of first-hand waves, not slides